Mirror Image
by echo-sackett
Summary: Brotherly Love


Disclaimer: Alas I do not own Tolkien. The characters are his and his alone. Praise be to the literary gods.  
  
Mirror Image  
  
Bright sunlight glinted off the red hair of a slender young man, cloaked in the brown and green of a gondorian ranger. Blue eyes stared out intently from a tanned face, peering at the wooded realm across the river. The ranger's body stood loose limbed and his-shot, only his eyes betraying the tension he felt. Had something moved among the trees? "Had you brought your bow, little brother, we would enjoy venison tonight."  
  
The richly timbered voice spoke just behind his shoulder, and Faramir started, heart catching in his throat, and then settling just as suddenly. He whirled around to glare at the big, brawny man who had just startled ten years off his life. Blue eyes that mirrored his own stared back, the latter's dancing with amusement. "Boromir! Do you have to sneak up on me like that?" Faramir choked. "Sneak?" Boromir cocked a bemused eyebrow at his younger brother. "Faramir, I made more noise than a bloody orc. I hope your sense of hearing serves you better when you are out patrolling."  
  
"My sense of hearing is just fine, thank you! You. just, just." Faramir's voice trailed off.  
  
"Yeees?" Boromir waited for his brother to finish, well-muscled arms crossed over his chest, a quizzical expression on his face. "Nothing!" Faramir turned abruptly and strode over to the base of a huge, gnarled oak on the bank of the river. He leaned down and began gathering the items scattered there. several scraps of parchment enclosed in a leather bound book, pens, and a gondorian dagger.  
  
Boromir's arm suddenly shot out and grabbed the book from Faramir. "How the heck does he do that?" Faramir groused to himself. "Wasn't he at least ten feet from me just now?"  
  
"A drawing book?" Boromir was scanning the book he had snatched from his brother, the mischievous look on his face slowly being replaced by one of amazement. "These are your renderings, brother?" On the pages, there was Denethor, their father, his noble face caught in all its chiseled grandeur, the climbing roses on the lower south wall of the White City, the gray wizard; Gandalf, woods and wildlife. page after page of drawings.  
  
"Faramir," Boromir was looking at his younger brother, something akin to awe in his eyes. "These are." words failed him, and Faramir seized the moment to take his possession back.  
  
"They're folly and child's play!" Faramir's voice was ragged and he could not meet his brother's eyes. "So says our father!" Faramir's voice dropped to a whisper, "What does a ranger need with such childish play things?"  
  
Boromir stared intently at his brother. "Are those your thoughts or father's? Does he speak for you?" Faramir sighed. "What difference does it make?" Faramir's voice was barely audible, a storm of mixed emotions flickering over his face. "He is the Steward!"  
  
"And merely a man, with all a man's burdens and weaknesses. Faramir, do not let him take this from you!" Boromir gestured at the book in his brother's hands. "Such beauty and detail should not be locked away for small- mindedness!"  
  
Faramir slowly raised his head till his eyes met those of his brother. The utter defeat in them stabbed Boromir to the heart. "Nay brother, I will make him as proud of me as he is of you. I am a Gondorian Ranger, not a teller and artist of tales!"  
  
Defeated for the moment, Boromir reached out and grasped his brother's shoulders. "So be it for now, little brother, but perhaps you can help me interpret this strange dream of mine. Have you heard of Isildur's Bane? I know that you too have suffered strange dreams."  
  
The brothers' talked for hours, but neither drew a conclusion to the meaning of the dream. "Faramir" "Mmm?" "I will be leaving in the morning. Lord Elrond has called a council of all the free peoples of Middle Earth. I. I will be representing Gondor, and I hope to find some answer for my dream among the elves." "You travel to Rivendell? Oh long have I wished to visit there!"  
  
Boromir smiled at his brother's dreamy expression. "Perhaps, soon, you will. But it is a long and dangerous journey, I fear I had better retire and get some rest."  
  
The older man rose to his feet, then suddenly reached down and pulled his brother up to him, wrapping him in a bear hug. "I will miss you, little brother, never forget that I love you!" Faramir's eyes filled with tears as he returned the embrace. "And I you, big brother!"  
  
Someone was shaking his shoulder and calling out in a gruff voice. "Captain! Captain! Captain Faramir!" Cold, dank air and the sound of dripping water greeted Faramir as he was rudely awakened from a fitful sleep. He sat up in his blankets, the dream fading around him. "Oh Boromir," he whispered, "would that I had gone with you!" and so the memory of his last time with his brother faded, just as the night sky did, as Faramir followed Damrod out of the cave. 


End file.
